Stochasticity, succession, and environmental perturbations in a fluidic ecosystem

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1324044111
• Publication Date: 2014-02-19T01:52:24Z
• Authors: Jizhong Zhou; Ye Deng; Ping Zhang; Kai Xue; Yuting Liang; Joy D. Van Nostrand; Yunfeng Yang; Zhili He; Liyou Wu; David A. Stahl; Terry C. Hazen; James M. Tiedje; Adam P. Arkin
• Keywords: 570; Time Factors; Population Dynamics; Models, Biological; 03 medical and health sciences; Species Specificity; Models; remediation; disturbances; Plant Oils; Groundwater; Ecosystem; metagenomics; Stochastic Processes; 0303 health sciences; Ecology; Microbiota; 500; Biological Sciences; 15. Life on land; Biological; 13. Climate action; GeoChip; community assembly; Water Microbiology

Significance The study of ecological succession remains at the core of ecology. Understanding the trajectories and mechanisms controlling ecological succession is crucial to predicting the responses of ecosystems to environmental change and projecting their future states. By definition, deterministic succession is expected under homogeneous abiotic and biotic starting conditions. This study, however, shows that the succession of groundwater microbial communities in response to nutrient amendment is primarily stochastic, but that the drivers controlling biodiversity and succession are dynamic rather than static. By identifying the mechanisms controlling microbial community assembly and succession, this study makes fundamental contribution to the mechanistic understanding essential for a predictive microbial ecology of many systems ranging from microbiomes of humans and plants to natural and managed ecosystems.